CHAPTER 40

The prison guard sat with his back to the wall. One hand rested on an earthenware jug, the other cradled a wine glass. His eyes did not open as Elizabeth approached. She looked to the keys at his belt, then to the door he guarded. His breathing sounded slack, but she didn’t trust his sleep.

“What are you doing, man?” she growled, the masculine rumble tickling the very back of her throat. She poked him with the toe of her boot and his eyes snapped open.

“Get up, you fool. The king would have you whipped.”

He scrambled to his feet, panic in his face, wine glass still clutched in his hand.

“I was awake. I’m sorry. Please…”

“Unlock the door!”

His hands were shaking. The keys jangled like a tambourine. The door opened and a cold wind blew in, tugging at her clothes and hair. She stepped through and then turned to face him.

“It’s a feast night. So I won’t report your drunkenness.”

There wasn’t enough light to see his expression, but she could hear the relief and gratitude in his voice. “Thank you, sir. Thank you. It won’t happen again.”

“Lock the door behind me,” she said. “And never speak of the magic I am about to do.”

She saw his head nodding. He wouldn’t understand until the morning. And then, perhaps a night of sleep and wine would make him doubt his own memory.

She made her way out along the wooden slats of the walkway, letting the cold chain links run through her hand. At the end, she crouched and whispered, “Are you awake?”

Mary’s voice came up to her: “Always.”

“I need to come down.”

There was no questioning from below. Just a scraping of wooden shingles. Elizabeth reached down between the slats and felt the outline of a hole in the roof of the cell. It would be big enough for her to drop through. But to reach it, she would have to let herself over the edge and somehow get her feet and legs back underneath the walkway.

“If I start to slip…”

“I’ll hold you,” Mary whispered.

The planks of the walkway had been weathered smooth. Elizabeth lay flat, her feet projecting out over the void, then inched backwards until her hips reached the edge. She felt her balance shifting. Clinging on with her hands, her feet scrabbled under the walkway, trying to find contact, slipping against the sloping roof. Worming backwards again, arms straining to keep hold, she swung her legs under and felt a hand close around one ankle. Then her other ankle was gripped and she was sliding back. She fell the last few feet, her back landing heavily on the roof shingles, but her legs were inside, and then her hips. She dropped down to land on a floor of planks, in the darkness of the cell.

“Welcome,” Mary whispered.

All Elizabeth could do was pant, catching her breath, feeling her heartbeat beginning to slow.

“You’re not Edwin,” Mary said.

“When did you know?”

“The second time you came here. You have the voice. But the things you were asking… They weren’t like him.”

“Do you have the rope?” Elizabeth asked.

“I do. But who are you?”

“My name is Elizabeth.”

“That’s not what I meant. Who are you really? What happened to Edwin?”

“He is still in the castle. And he’s still the magician. I am…” She faltered. “I am no one.”

“That’s not true.”

The wind gusted, rattling the roof. In the darkness, Elizabeth heard Mary getting to her feet and replacing the missing shingles.

“Will you come with me?” Elizabeth asked.

“You’re going down the rope?”

“Yes.”

“Escaping?”

“Yes.”

“If I go missing, they’ll come after us.”

“We’ll travel at night.”

“If you go alone, no one will follow. And if I went with you, I’d only be giving the king what he wants.”

Elizabeth said: “If you die in this cell, what will it achieve?”

“I don’t know. But then, I could never have guessed that you’d be here like this. You’re going to go out into the world and you’re going to tell other people what I’ve told you. The world is going to change.”

There was the warmth of a smile in Mary’s voice.

The wind slackened. Elizabeth found herself listening to near-silence.

“You’re his sister,” Mary said.

“How did you know?”

“You’re so similar. Yet different. Let me hold your hand.”

The skin of Mary’s fingers was rough, her grip firm. “Remember me,” she said.

“If I live, I will never be able to forget.”

The cell had been bolted to the wall by four iron brackets. Onto one of these, Elizabeth tied the end of the rope. Mary unlatched a section of the end wall and swung it inwards. The rope dropped into the blackness. There were no more farewells. Elizabeth let herself over the side, keeping her body close to the rope and gripping it with her feet, she began letting herself down, hand over hand.

The wind gusted again, blowing her against the rock. The further she went, the more the rope stretched to her movement. Then the cliff began to slope outwards, so that she could find footholds. Two times she stopped to rest her arms. She couldn’t see the ground, but at last heard the wind in the tree tops. She was among the branches when her feet slipped off the end of the rope. She dropped, landed on loose scree, began to slide down the steep slope, but came up hard against the slim trunk of a sapling.

She heard the rope falling before feeling it. It landed in loops all around her. Mary had cast off from above.

The next morning, the king stood with his magician at the top of the highest tower, looking east towards the mountain, its edge lit by the rising sun. The feasting had gone on all night.

“Your fight has cost me a counsellor,” he said.

Edwin bowed in that way that Janus had once done, a suggestion of agreement, but yet not. “I’ve gained you the whole of Newfoundland,” he said. “A king for a counsellor. It’s not a bad exchange.”

The king’s frown deepened. He had seemed uneasy since the grand illusion: a darkening of his brow whenever he glanced in Edwin’s direction. It must have been comfortable to think that magic could tell the future and that tricks could manipulate the minds of lesser men. But the Vanishing Man had been too perfect. It had upset the balance between them. Edwin had gone from being a useful tool to something more powerful. A rival, perhaps. The king’s unease would only grow.

“It was a trick,” Edwin said, too quietly for the guards on the stairs below to overhear.

The king stared at him. Shook his head. “I saw the impossible.”

“But you didn’t see what you thought you saw.”

Clouds hung heavy in the northern sky, making the water of the river dark. After the treaty had been signed, he’d slipped away, run back up the stairs to tell Elizabeth he had won. The room was empty. He asked the gate guards. They told him that no one had passed. After that he searched the room again, and found the rope missing.

Somewhere out there she was struggling back towards Lewiston, carrying the third copy of the treaty document. If she made it across the border, the forces of the Gas-Lit Empire would learn of their plans. He remembered what she’d said: I can’t weigh a single life, let alone a hundred million.

All he had to do was tell the king. Hunters would be sent out. They’d get her back and stop that parchment getting into the hands of the enemy.

“How did you do it?” the king asked.

“I built the crate of fruit just like one of my mother’s cabinets. And there was a flash bomb to blind the audience for long enough.”

“But how could you have gone from one end of the courtyard to the other so quickly?”

Edwin remembered the warmth of his sister’s touch. “Did you not see the sweat on my face when I emerged?” he asked.

The king shook his head.

“I scrambled back underneath the trestle tables, then up through a trick hatchway in the bottom of the crate. I had longer than you think.”

Some of the tension drained from the king’s face. He sighed. “When you tell me how your tricks are done, they seem… so much less. And yet you fooled our guests. I will need a new counsellor, Edwin. More than one perhaps. People who disagree with you. Yours can’t be the only voice in my ear.”

“Yes, sire. It is the best way.”

At that the king smiled, and more warmly than Edwin could remember. “I should have trusted you,” he said. “History has proved you faithful.”

Edwin knelt. The king’s hand rested on his head, a royal blessing.

When he stood, the king held him by the shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. “We have much to do, and little time. Are you ready for the challenge?”

Edwin said, “I am.”